To be closer to the new railroad, the citizens of Tunica County voted to move the county seat from Austin to the town of Tunica. The first of two courthouses was built in 1888 on land donated by R.C. Irwin. In its early years, the courtroom was used as a dance floor, and young people from the surrounding area danced until dawn to the music of W.C. Handy. The courthouse burned on January 17, 1920. All that remains of the Greek Revival structure, which included a Colonial clock tower and columns reaching from ground to roof, is the concrete base of one column. The deep grooves in the column were made by Frank Adams, who in his youth used the column as a sawhorse and later became the executive officer of the submarine Nautilus during its trip under the ice at the North Pole.